G-Force Combi Pack (Blu-ray + DVD)

This review of "G-Force"(G-Force [DVD] [2009]) is based on having been to see the film in the cinema with my family.

Children's tastes vary so much that no film can please every child, let alone every parent, but I can only report that my two eight-year old children enjoyed this. It also has plenty of good lines in it aimed at the adults in the audience: in fact I have not enjoyed a film I watched with my children so much since "The Incredibles."

The opening to the story is that an FBI scientist has been training a group of intelligent animals and insects to act as high-tech special agents. "G Force" consists of three Guinea Pigs, a mole, a fly, and a number of cockroaches, who have been trained to sneak into the homes or businesses of suspected criminals looking for the evidence which can be used to bring them down.

Learning that the FBI is about to pull the plug on their funding, he sends G Force on an unapproved mission to infiltrate the mansion of one of the country's biggest consumer electrical goods manufacturers (Bill Nighy) who the FBI suspect is up to something very sinister.

Sure enough, the G force leader, Darwin, finds and copies a file on a computer in the mansion which appears to show that the company is planning some kind of ghastly attack on the whole human race. But when their electronics expert, the mole Speckles (voiced by Nicholas Cage) presents the data to the FBI, it merely proves that the world's leading consumer goods manufacturer is about to bring out a new coffee machine. Disgusted, the Special Agent in charge orders the project shut down.

To prove that they really did get some valuable data and stop a catastrophe, G force have to go underground. And what Darwin does not realise is that someone very close to him is a traitor.

And that is just the opening of the film ...

The film is quite violent and vivid, and quite a bit more adult in tone than you would expect given that it is a children's comedy whose heroes are guinea pigs. The PG rating is justified: my eight-year-olds were fine with this but I would be careful about taking a child aged six or younger to see it.

Of course the idea of intelligent rodents is implausible - it's a children's film, for heaven's sake - but given that basic premise the action of the film is quite good at enabling the viewer to suspend disbelief.

G-Force is not a DVD just for kids! It has loads of laughs that are suitable for both kids and adults alike. A good film with a storyline that has amazing animation and one you can really get into along the way. Give it a go, you won't be disappointed.

Thoroughly entertaining romp. Plenty of oohs and aahs - with a load of "How cute is that" thrown in. The wife and I along with our two boys (in their 20s) were thoroughly entertained from start to finish. A most pleasurable hour and a half.